Excellence in teams comes from

On trust

Perhaps the most important currency in relationship—friendship, romantic, familial, or professional—is trust.

Trust means people feel safe to be vulnerable.

Trust means loyalty.

Trust means integrity.

Wisdom for leaders

Leaders lead. You can’t have 1 foot in and 1 foot out. If you aren’t fully committed then the people around you won’t be either.

In business there is growing evidence that compassion is a key factor to success.

Go to extraordinary lengths to build safety, clarity, meaning, dependability, and impact into each team you lead.

Create a climate of communication, respect, feedback, and trust.

Listen. Pay attention. This is what great managers do.

Managers authority emerges only as the manager establishes credibility with subordinates, peers, and superiors.

Your title makes you a manager. You’re people make you a leader.

“Get the one on one right” and “get the staff meeting right” were top on Bill’s list of the most important management principles.

Failure to make a decision can be as damaging as a wrong decision.

Never put up with people who cross ethical lines: Lying, lapses of integrity or ethics, harassing or mistreating colleagues.

Letting people go is a failure of management, not one of any of the people who are being let go.

It’s a manager’s job to push this team to be more courageous.

Don’t just be a dictator assigning tasks, pair people up!

On Teams

Coaching is the best way to mold effective people into powerful teams.

Start treating teams, not individuals, as the fundamental building block of the organization.

Teams need to act as communities, integrating interests and putting aside differences to be individually and collectively obsessed with what’s best for the company.

When internal conflict arises the trick is to corral rivals into a community and get them aligned, marching toward a common goal.

When team members can’t break the tie themselves, it falls on you to make that decision.

When faced with an issue, his first question wasn’t about the issue itself, it was about the team tasked with tackling the issue. Get the team right and you’ll get the issue right.

On meetings

He’d start by asking what people did for the weekend.

Before decisions were made everyone weighed in, regardless of whether the issue touched on their functional area or not.

Bill would often meet with multiple people before an important meeting to find out what they were thinking. This gave members of the team the chance to come into the room prepared to talk about their point of view.

When labelled a debate rather than a disagreement, participants are more likely to share information.

Having a well-run process to get to a decision is just as important as the decision itself, because it gives the team confidence and keeps everyone moving.

On 1:1’s

Bill would always start with a hug.

Next he’d ask about your personal life, family, and non-work stuff.

Bill would write five words on a white board indicating the topics to discuss that day. The words might be about a person, a product, an operational issue, a prospective customer, or an upcoming meeting.